A Light on the Veranda

Chapter One

March 14

Daphne Whitaker Duvallon always suspected that jilted fiancés could spell
trouble, and—in certain circumstances—might even be downright dangerous.

Of course, nobody thought that on the night the classical harpist ditched
Jack Ebert at the altar in front of five hundred wedding guests at Saint
Louis Cathedral in the heart of New Orleans’s French Quarter. Most folks
thought that Jack took the public humiliation remarkably well. However,
from that candlelit evening onwards, any unbiased observer would say that
Daphne’s life became the female version of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.

Even so, how could she have known that an entirely new path would emerge
from the supernova her life had become, or that the orbit of nature
photographer Simon Chandler Hopkins was destined to intersect her own?
Looking back, she realized that surely the stars must have shifted in the
heavens the instant she retrieved that fateful phone message one raw,
rain-filled night in New York.

“Hey there, Botticelli angel girl! How y’all doin’ up there in Yankee
land?”

Daphne pictured her older brother clasping an amber bottle of Dixie beer
in one hand and his cordless phone in the other, perfectly at ease
chatting to his sister’s voice mail in faraway Manhattan.

“It’s a lovely spring evenin’ here in New Orleans, and I just wanted you
to know that your only siblin’s still very much a man in love. So guess
what, darlin’? Corlis and I are finally goin’ to do the deed! Kingsbury
Duvallon is—at last—gettin’ married. Next week, in fact.”

Next week?

The mere mention of a wedding—any wedding, even her beloved brother’s—made
Daphne’s heart pound erratically and her breath come in short gasps. It
had been just over two years since she’d fled back to New York after
bailing out of her own Christmastime marriage extravaganza—an
eighty-thousand-dollar event replete with nine bridesmaids; three flower
girls; twin-boy ring bearers; acres of roses and pine boughs, supplied at
cost from Flowers by Duvallon; seven limousines, supplied gratis from the
Ebert-Petrella chain of funeral homes; not to mention sixty-six tall,
ivory tapers affixed one to a pew at twenty dollars a pop and the
stillborn reception at the posh New Orleans Country Club. And of course,
who could forget the television crew in the church balcony sent by WWEZ-TV
to cover the “wedding of the season”?

Was it any wonder, Daphne thought, that King’s reference to nuptials
involving her family in New Orleans made her feel as if she might slip off
her kitchen bar stool in a dead faint? She scanned her minuscule,
fifth-floor walkup and wondered if her cordless phone would still work if
she stuck her head out of the window to get some cool, northeastern air.

“To make up for such short notice,” her brother continued carefully,
sounding as if he could imagine her discomfort when she heard word of this
impending family gathering, “you’ll probably be mighty pleased to hear
that we’re not tyin’ the knot in the great state of Louisiana.”

“Amen,” she murmured, closing her eyes and offering up a prayer of thanks
to whatever voodoo gods were handling her case. She leaned her elbows
against the kitchen counter for support and held onto the phone receiver
like a life preserver. Someone in the next apartment slammed a door and
yelled
a curse in Spanish that was immediately answered with a string of
Anglo-Saxon epithets. Five stories below, car brakes screeched and horns
honked furiously. “Manhattan cab driv-
ers,” she muttered.

“Corlis and I have decided our little shindig’ll work jus’ fine in
Natchez, instead of New Orleans, so you have no excuse not to be there,”
King’s voice message continued. “We’ve almost got the church lined up,
with the rest of the details—like the reception—to follow. Y’have to come,
Daph.”

King’s mellifluous Southern drawl was soothing. Daphne would bet a new set
of harp strings that her brother and his fiancée were lounging on King’s
elegant, fern-strewn gallery overlooking the French Quarter, relaxing
after work.

She could imagine her brother’s tall, lean figure slouched in a chair, his
handsome dark head framed by a fan of white wicker, his feet propped up on
the wrought iron railing. Even over the phone line she could hear the
sound of a jingling harness, the faint clip-clop of a mule passing by on
Dauphine Street below, and the shout of a tourist-carriage driver speeding
toward the city’s livery stable a few blocks away. According to her
kitchen clock, it was still early evening in New Orleans. The gaslit
street lamps would be glowing through a riverine mist obscuring the modern
skyscrapers that loomed over the Quarter. Those steel-and-glass
monstrosities towering above Canal Street had made King’s efforts as an
architectural historian to protect the city’s remaining store of venerable
old buildings a cause célèbre in the Big Easy—and justly earned him the
title “The Hero of New Orleans” in the Times-Picayune. To his younger
sister, however, King had been a hero long before that. He’d been her
rock. Her bulwark against—

“Guess I’m takin’ up all the space on the ol’ voice mail,” her brother
said apologetically, jolting her back to reality. “Call us, sugar,
a.s.a.p. And don’t let any of this weddin’ stuff freak you out. It’ll all
turn out jus’ fine. Take good care, y’hear?”

Daphne inhaled shakily, depressed the “save” button on her voice mail
system, then speed dialed the familiar number in New Orleans. As expected,
she got King’s answering machine. Daphne knew he routinely screened his
calls to avoid any unexpected verbal confrontations with Magnolia Mama, as
their mother, Antoinette Kingsbury Duvallon, was known among her intimates.

Daphne’s brother concluded his taped greeting with his customary wry
dispatch. “Y’all have a decent day, y’hear?”

“Hi guys . . . this is Daphne. Congratulations are definitely in order—”

“Hey! Daphne!” King’s deep voice broke in. “Corlis said it’d be you.
Whatcha think, angel girl?”

“I will be forever in your debt for not getting married in our hometown.”

“Cousin Maddy, up in Natchez, is over the moon ’bout us holdin’ the
weddin’ in the Town That Time Forgot,” he replied with deliberate irony.
Natchez, Mississippi, and New Orleans, Louisiana, sparred in an age-old
rivalry as to which riverside city was held in higher esteem by
historians, or possessed the most revered architecture. “She’s offered us
that tumblin’ down ol’ mansion of hers, overlookin’ the river, as Weddin
Central.”

“You’re getting married at Cousin Maddy’s house?” Daphne asked
incredulously. A mental picture of her elderly cousin’s chaotic abode
materialized in her mind: the lopsided veranda supported by six shaky
Corinthian-style front porch pillars, five years of magazines stashed
under priceless antique furniture throughout four floors, and a good half
inch of cat hair dusting every horizontal surface. Cousin Maddy was a
sweetheart and a superb music teacher, but a tidy housekeeper she was not.

“Oh, good Lord, no!” King assured his sister. “Our very abbreviated bridal
party’s just sleepin’ there ’midst the rubble, since everything in town
was booked for Spring Pilgrimage.”

“You’re getting married during the home tours? You are brave.”

“The ceremony’s planned for First Presbyterian on Pearl Street. We’ll know
for sure later today if we got the church, but I’m pretty sure we lucked
out there.”

“Mmm . . . it’s gorgeous . . . and a lot smaller . . .” Daphne murmured
into the receiver.

“I just don’t think any of us could have stomached seein’ those same ol
people in that same ol’ cathedral on Jackson Square this time ’round.”

“I’m afraid my stomach might have made me a no-show,” Daphne admitted
sheepishly.

“Naturally, Mama’s fit to be tied not being able to overdecorate Saint
Louis Cathedral with Flowers by Duvallon again, but what else is new?”

“Nothing,” Daphne declared, pronouncing the g distinctly. She’d worked
hard on losing her Southern inflection in a conscious effort to sound like
other New Yorkers.

“First Pres bein’ only a third the size of the cathedral means most of
Mama’s friends will be highly insulted not to be invited—as she informed
me this mornin’—but it’ll all work out, eventually. I keep tellin’ her the
bride gets to pick the church, but you know magnolias . . . they think
they rule the world.”

“You got that right,” Daphne agreed with more pique than she intended. How
could things “work out eventually” when her mother and father had refused
to speak or communicate with her in the twenty-seven months since she’d
bolted from her wedding at the absolute eleventh hour?

“Now, don’t you start worryin’ ’bout Jack gettin’ wind of this. He’s moved
to Dallas. And besides, everyone on this end’...